Paint Schoodic

Friday, March 31, 2017

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Craftsmen

Craftsmanship, passed
down from artist to artist, keeps modern painting alive. That’s because
painting is a craft, not an intellectual pursuit.

Rowboats on Dock, oil
on board, by Robert McCloskey

The other day I overheard an Old Salt telling a Young Salt that
connecting links in marine chains are as strong as coil chain once the rivets
are peened in. That kind of knowledge is passed from person to person in a
trade. It can hardly be measured or tested.

My husband recently remarked that tradespeople get more respect in
Maine than they did back in New York. I think he’s right. New York is heavy on
colleges and universities. That’s a good thing, but it does result in some
disregard for the highly-skilled people who hold our physical world together.

Any flat-pack project can be rendered infinitely more complicated with the addition of glue and clamps.

That’s ironic, since we live in a society where few people can
do much of anything. A 2012
survey found that 44% of British adults were unable to assemble flat-pack
furniture. Another quarter of them needed a whole day. Only 42% of Americans are
confident they can change a flat tire, and 26% believe they can change the
oil in their car. We need the trades.

There was
a time when artists considered themselves craftsmen rather than
intellectuals. That shifted with the Age of Enlightenment
and the Cult
of Genius. We’re in the final stages of this thinking, where implied talent
and intent trump discipline and skill.

One artist who thought of himself primarily as a craftsman
was the brilliant and revered Maine illustrator, Robert McCloskey. A show of his
work runs at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts until June 18. I’d hoped to go
down to see it with Bobbi Heath, but—I’m
embarrassed to admit—I was home with my ailing
dog. I had to be content with the photo she sent me of his Rowboats on Dock, above.

From Robert
McCloskey: A Private Life in Words and Pictures by Jane McCloskey.

McCloskey thought of himself as an illustrator, not an
artist. “He never sold anything [of his paintings], and never really tried,” his
daughter Jane said. “It was all about the books.”

“His puppets and paintings,” she wrote, “which never won any
awards, were worth as much to him as the books which won the praise of the
world.”

“Don't talk about it; do it,” was McCloskey’s credo.

Dynamic symmetry is a system of rectangular design invented
by Jay Hambidge. It’s easier to visualize
than explain,
since it is based on square roots. McCloskey was a fan of dynamic symmetry.

I also learned this system and sometimes still use and teach it. I got
it from an ‘Old Salt’ of an artist, the figure painter Steven Assael. It’s that
kind of knowledge, passed along from artist to artist, which keeps modern painting
alive. In this way, we have more in common with tradespeople than we do with intellectuals. There's nothing to be ashamed of in that.